


Algolagnia (n.)

by leiascully



Series: There Will Be Other Dances [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-08
Updated: 2011-06-08
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Like you said, you're all grown up.  You can make your own decisions.  Get ancient words that no one else can read tattooed permanently on your skin."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Algolagnia (n.)

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Spoilers for 6.07 "A Good Man Goes To War", but not really following from it. River is 21.  
> Concrit: Welcome  
> A/N: I found the Gallifreyan for River's tattoo [here](http://www.hithah.com/lj/gallifreyan3.png). This is for my tattoos/tattooing square on my [**kink_bingo**](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) card; there's not actual sex in it, but it is fairly erotically focused (think Scully in "Never Again"). If kink is not your thing, scroll on past. Thank you to [**coffeesuperhero**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/coffeesuperhero/) for the readthrough and the tattoo knowledge (and [this site](https://www.msu.edu/~krcmari1/individual/get_process.html) too). Any mentions of River's past are all my head canon.  
>  Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ and all related characters are the property of Russell T. Davies, Stephen Moffat, and BBC. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

"Come along, Doctor," River says, imperious as a queen. She's twenty-one today, halfway through her archaeology program. She's always been too clever by half; there's the influence of the Time Vortex, he thinks, half-proudly. She represents their people proudly. He's fairly certain the other students in her class must loathe that about her for that and the swaggering grace with which she walks, dead certain that she's the most dangerous thing in any room. He couldn't save her all the pain and difficulty of her childhood, the training and conditioning they put her through, but she's made an amazing recovery. She hasn't given him that look like she wants to kill him in three or four years now. She may still be a weapon, but she wields herself now, and usually for the side he's on, which is frankly a relief.

"Where are we going?" he asks, closing the door of the TARDIS.

"Wherever I want," she says, maddeningly. "It's my birthday. Today, I have officially attained my majority on every world where humans exist, and that includes the stupid ones where I ought to have been adult for three years now, and I'm going to do what I like."

"On my planet, you'd be barely out of diapers," he mutters.

She pats his arm. "Yes, but you're ancient." She looks him up and down in a appraising, approving gesture he knows well. "Extremely well-preserved, but ancient."

It is completely mind-bogglingly difficult to be around her today. River Song: newly minted, positively exhaling pheromones and sensual appeal, lean and sleek and confident in her short blue dress that shows more of her cleavage and her legs than he can help himself looking at. Pythia knows it took her long enough to accustom him to the idea that it was all right, even encouraged, for a Time Lord to give in to the pleasures of sex, after the long lonely years and the curse and all. At any moment he expects her to cup her hand around his head and drag his mouth down to hers, for her fingers to fumble apart the knot of his bowtie. But he promised Amy and Rory that he'd keep her safe, and that means from his own influence as well, at this point.

It's completely different when she's a child; he sees her differently, the few moments he's spent around the girl River instead of the adult, especially since those were all pain and fear and panic and wide eyes and rescue missions and misplaced anger. She reminds him of her mother at that age, little Amelia who grew up to flirt with him too, but who trusted him enough then to put her tiny hand in his and walk out into the wide universe. He doesn't have to remind himself then not to let slip anything about their future to River-the-child, because it's as if she's a completely different person from the River he fell in love with. He's never once this early in her timeline been attracted to her, but today she walks down the street as if every person they pass wants her, and from the looks of the faces on them, she isn't wrong. Today, she's transformed.

"So what have you got for me?" she asks, taking his hand and dragging him down an alleyway. "I know you didn't come without a present. You never miss my birthday, not since I was small."

"And I never will," he promises. It's a promise that's easy to make, when he knows he'll have already kept it.

He's glad he met River when she was older, wiser, enough of life behind her to understand their situation even when he didn't. The last time he saw her was a few months from now in her timeline. He wonders now if that was the last time, their first time.

"Out with it, then," she says, sidling backwards somehow, though he would have thought it improbable at best in the shoes she's wearing, high strappy sandals that make her hips sway when she walks.

"I'll give it to you later," he tells her.

"Oh, _Doctor_ , is that a promise?" she says, her voice both scandalized and seductive, and he blushes. She laughs at him.

"For a man who's been around the universe, you certainly have delicate sensibilities," she tells him.

"Some of us just have a sense of propriety," he says. "How'm I supposed to face your parents after I hear you talk like that?"

She rolls her eyes. "Same as you ever did. They know you'll always take care of me." Her eyes sparkle. "Fortunately, they didn't set too many parameters for what that care should entail. But don't worry - I have a few ideas."

"River," he starts.

"Come _on_ ," she says, and drags him into a little shop. He's delighted for a moment, looking around at the art on the walls, and then he realizes what sort of shop it is. He glances at River, but she's already meeting his eyes, her gaze steady.

"I know what you're thinking, Doctor," she says. "But it's my body, and I'm an adult, and it's my choice. You can't protect me forever and neither can my parents. God knows I've been through worse than some inky needles in my young life."

He just inclines his head. She's right. Who is he to tell her how to live? He didn't prevent the wrongs that were done to her. Respect is the least he can give her. Besides, he already knew she had tattoos. He just didn't know when she got this one, or that he was there for it.

She nods back. "Good. Now come over here in case I need a hand to hold."

"At your service, lady," he says.

"Hallo, River," says the heavily-inked woman at the counter. "Come around, have you?"

"It's m'birthday, Ivy," River says, beaming. "The semester's over, the weather's lovely, and I'm ready."

"Then come on back," Ivy says. She leads River through a back room populated with equally inky folk, both giving and receiving tattoos, to a padded chair. The Doctor trails along, hands in his pockets. Ivy sits River down in the chair backwards, so that her chest rests against the chair back and her chin fits into a hollow there. He's almost sad that her breasts are against the leather out of sight. River settles in, smoothing the short skirt of her dress over her legs. Ivy winks at the Doctor. "Don't worry, I'll take care of your girl."

"She's not..." the Doctor begins.

"More like I'll take care of him," River cuts in. "I can't guarantee he won't faint if there's blood."

"I will not!" the Doctor protests.

"I'll do my best to keep it clean," Ivy says. "Pull up a chair and you can watch me work."

The Doctor hasn't got much choice. River's eyes dare him to disobey, but she knows he won't leave her. He drags a chair over, hooking one foot around the leg of it, and slouches, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Old-fashioned, I know," River says, slipping the straps of her dress and her bra off her shoulder slowly, her eyes locked with his. He tries to ignore how sensual the motion is, tries not to imagine the tension of the thin fabric over her shoulder and the friction of it. He tries not to imagine the breath of perfume from her sun-warmed skin if he used his teeth to tug those straps instead of letting her use her hands. "There are the automated parlors. But I wanted an artist's touch."

"That's what you'll get with me," Ivy says, pulling up a file and setting it to print. "I've got your final design all knocked up and ready to go." She moistens a ball of cotton and rubs River's left shoulder blade with antiseptic. The Doctor tamps down the most miniscule pang of jealousy in the galaxy at the fact that Ivy gets to touch River and that River welcomes Ivy's touch. It isn't Ivy's fault River wanted the hands-on experience. All she's doing as the artist is providing the service. He's sure she's not rubbing like that to make him wish he were the one disinfecting River. She dabs depilatory gel on River's skin and rubs it in, then wipes River's shoulder with antiseptic again. He tries to maintain his propriety. He's touched River enough in their lifetimes, surely. He can keep his hands to himself now.

"Chilly," River remarks, cool as an Ice Warrior. She's brave, his River, as brave as Amy could have ever hoped.

"You'll have something else on your mind in a moment," Ivy says. She pulls the sheet from the printer and presses it against River's skin, rubbing over it with a stick of something the Doctor doesn't recognize. When she pulls the paper away, the design is there on River's shoulder. The Doctor can't help craning his neck to look at it. He'll seen it a thousand times, he thinks, but this time, the first time, she'll expect him to be impressed, and she ought to - it's a feat she's pulled off.

"Hang on," he says, getting up and stalking around. "That's Gallifreyan. Where'd you learn that?"

"You taught me," River tells him. "You and the TARDIS. I thought it was appropriate."

"'Journey'," he reads, thinking of all the times he's traced the curves of the words. "Fair enough."

"I've got a long way to go," she says. "Maybe someday I'll get 'home' on the other side."

"A lovely symmetry," he says, settling back into his chair so that his knee presses against the outside of her bare one.

"I thought you'd be less cool about this," River says as Ivy pulls up a little table and lays out her inks and needles and wipes and draws on her gloves.

The Doctor shrugs. "Like you said, you're all grown up. You can make your own decisions. Get ancient words that no one else can read tattooed permanently on your skin."

River bats her eyes at him. "Maybe I don't want anybody else to read it."

"Oh, now," the Doctor says, crossing one leg over the other. "Careful who you say that to, my love. Someone might take you up on the offer."

"I'm not the ingenue you seem to think I am," River tells him. "And you are a flirt."

"Both of you knock it off a minute," Ivy says. "Some of us have work to do." She sets the needle buzzing and presses River gently back down into the chair. "This might sting." She brings the needle to bear against River's skin. River's eyes widen but she says nothing. The Doctor reaches for her hand and she tightens her fingers around his.

He watches her as Ivy moves the needle over her skin. River's eyes are dark and her cheeks are flushed. He's seen that face before often enough in her future. River is turned on. He shifts in his chair. His clothes are too tight, suddenly, and it's most inconvenient. That particular expression on her face will always inspire a certain reaction in him.

He imagines the sensations she's undergoing: the sting of the needle, the cool of the air against her heated skin as her body responds to the pain, the rush of endorphins through her system, the delight she takes sometimes in resisting the needs and the aches of her body. He's seen her keep going when most people would drop in their tracks, just for the joy of pushing past her limits. This is nothing to her, nothing but a game. Nothing but an exercise, flickers of her past bleeding through into something altogether more pleasant. Compared to the pain they've known together in his timeline, this is only a bit of fun. It will be the same for her when they're in bed together, testing the boundaries between Enough and Too Much, new sensations born of old experience. Oh yes, this is the beginning. This moment in this nearly antiquated parlor, lines are drawn between them.

River squeezes his hand. Her thumb rubs circles against his palm. As guilty as he feels about it, yes, he wants her. He wants her skin, all her skin, to flush and warm under his hands instead of Ivy's. He wants to feel her tremble against him the way she's trembling a little now, with adrenaline and excitement and the thrill of living dangerously. She asked him here because she wants him too, wanted to share this moment with him. She's too young for him, but she always will be; he long ago resigned himself to the proportional differences in their ages. Humans are fragile things. At least River's got a touch of the Time Vortex in her.

He brings her fingers to his lips, leaning forward, and locks his eyes with hers. It's almost too intimate, watching her pain and her pleasure in it, but he doesn't look away. She is master of her body. She is master of her life. She needs nobody's permission or support, but she asked him anyway. She presses her knee against his and he presses back, as steady as he can be when he wants her this much.

"If this is your journey, River Song, then I'll be your Companion," he whispers, barely audible over the hum of the needle as Ivy concentrates on the whorls and loops of the word. It isn't really a spoiler, and anyway, it's his turn to have the answers.

She bites her lip in acknowledgement, her eyes going even darker. They sit there, reading each other's faces. He can feel the buzz of the needle faintly through her bones. The tempo of it changes as the line crosses her scapula or her skin. He will kiss that shoulder later, when the angry red has faded from her skin. He'll rub lotion over the scab as it heals. He will read the lines of her body the way he reads her tattoo, tracing the curves of it. She's breathing faster, her lips parted now, and so is he. As close as he feels to her at this moment, they might as well be naked. How much he regrets not being there when she got "home" on the right shoulder to experience this all over again. Perhaps he can be there, will have been there if he can suss out the coordinates. He wonders if it would rewrite too much of time to see her get a third tattoo. All the sensation in his body is concentrated at the places where his skin touches hers; all his attention is bent on her eyes and her face and what she must be feeling as the needle etches ink into her back.

He wishes he knew how to tattoo. He'd cover her body in Gallifreyan poetry, astronomical texts, botanical notations, anything she liked. A permanent record of their fleeting memories: she could be her own diary. But he's getting ahead of himself now, when he needs to be here with her. She smiles at him and he aches with wanting her and settles for kissing her fingers again.

"All done," Ivy says what feels like an eternity later, and he has to check his time sense to make sure it's only been a couple of hours. River looks just as dazed. The shop is as busy as ever, but he doesn't remember noticing anyone else for quite a while. Ivy puts down the needle gun and dabs a few drops of blood off the tattoo as the Doctor watches her. She smoothes a bandage over River's shoulder. "And there you are. Remember what I told you about how to care for it. Come back if you'd like it touched up or checked on. Or are you going to look after her?"

"Always," the Doctor says, giving River a hand out of her chair, as she seems stiff from sitting so still for so long. She gingerly tugs her straps back up, leaving them half-slipping off her shoulder so they don't interfere with the bandage.

"A romantic," Ivy says. "How sweet." She seems to mean it, even smiles as she takes River's credits. "Have a lovely day, you two."

"We will," River says. As soon as they're in the street, she takes the Doctor's hand and pulls his arm around her waist. "That's better."

"What shall we do now?" he asks, as if he doesn't know that she knows what they just shared. As if she doesn't know how much he wants her. He's certain she could feel it in him even if there weren't the evidence of his flushed face and his snug trousers. Sometimes he's too subtle for the fifty-first century.

"I want my present," she tells him.

"And you shall have it," he tells her. "It is, after all, your birthday." He reaches into the inside pocket of his suit and pulls out a diary. TARDIS blue, of course, and didn't he scour the universe to find the right one after all the times he's seen her with it. "I imagine you've filled up the first one by now. It's all back to front now, so I hope you'll keep track of where we've gone, so you'll know what not to tell me. You'll be the archive of my future, River Song. Mind you don't let it go to your head."

"Thank you, sweetie," she says. "In fact, I had quite finished the other one." They don't talk often about her past, the people who taught her to record everything about him so that she could find his weaknesses. _I trust you_ , this says, and _We're going to have the greatest of adventures, you and I_ , and he hopes she understands it. She seems to, as she turns her hips against his and reaches up for a lingering kiss, the diary pressed between them.

"That was nice," he says, smiling at her.

"Are you always this dense?" she demands.

"Oh, nearly always," he says. "Aren't you lucky I'm quite responsive by now. Er, spoilers." This will be their first time, then, in her timeline. He had better savor it. He can skip back through the vortex, see her again, but it's an indulgence, something he ought not do very often. He will enjoy this for what it is, a precious unique moment in their complicated space-time events. He won't see her much after this; he'll have to stay out of her way, except for a few crucial moments, or risk their lives. She won't be this River anyway. She won't be the woman he loves.

"I didn't save myself for you," she says bluntly. "Whatever you're thinking about having had to protect me, my body is mine and I'll do what I like."

"I wouldn't have expected you to," he tells her. "Archaic notion, really. Not at all in keeping with right thinking, especially at this point in history. Your parents can't help being from a backwards century. That wasn't at all why I was watching over you. Much more to do with preventing your untimely demise or mine, really, not about policing your adolescent urges."

"I thought it would be special enough, when the time came," she says, and for the first time, he sees a moment of self-consciousness in her. "I wanted it to be. Speaking of archaic notions."

"I promise that it will be special every time," he says.

"I hated you, before," she reminds him.

"Oh, lots of people do," he says airily. "If I went around kissing everyone who ever loathed my very bones and wanted to destroy me, I'd have my work cut out for me. Anyway, you don't hate me now, do you?"

"No," she says, "although that might make it interesting."

"Hmph," he says. "River Song, you're plenty interesting enough for me all on your own, thanks."

"So I can hold your attention then?" she smirks.

"For at long as you like," he promises. "After all, it is your birthday."

"Well, I can't be on my back," she says with a wink. "But I think we can work it out."

" _You_ ," he says fondly. "Yes, I rather think we can." He wraps his arm around her again and lets her take the lead.


End file.
